Fine Art Photography by Kristina Krause

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“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.” –George Orwell

I was inspired by some of the work of photographer Kenneth Josephson after seeing one of his images in Harper’s Magazine. His book The Light of Coincidence is a terrific collection of his work, and while browsing through its pages, I find we have similar aesthetic sensibilities.

I found this small, leather-bound SwedishPsalmbok in a used bookstore in Ventura, CA. In addition to how lovely it feels in the hand, its leather softened by the hands of another, its delicate weight, the fact that it is written in Swedish was intriguing. How had that book made a journey from Sweden to southern California? Moreover, who is Kris Lind, whose name is embossed in gold on the bottom right corner of the front cover, and how did he or she end up in California? Did his or her effects end up in this bookstore after a death, both book and man to be remembered no more (a line at the edge of the page reads, “Och han minnes den ej mer…” meaning, “And he remembered it no more……”)? Although I can’t read Swedish, I recognized the language on the page as some of my ancestors emigrated from Sweden to live in the northeast region of the U.S., where my maternal grandfather, Bernard Oscar Sandquist, was born. Growing up, I was told I was named for his mother.

Kris Lind may not be related to me in any way, but his or her Psalmbok now lives with me, no longer stripped from memory.

“You know, though, there’s a crack between reading and becoming. One thing is not the other. A seam, it seems, and here it’s brought to life. Through it we are aware again of light.”
–Ander Monson, from Letter to a Future Lover.

“There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing… I am a recording instrument… I do not presume to impose “story” “plot” “continuity”… insofar as I succeed in direct recording of certain areas of psychic process I may have limited function… I am not an entertainer…” from Naked Lunch

Apparently, Burroughs recorded life using more than a pen. A new book has been published, Taking Shots: The Photographs of WIlliam S. Burroughs, the catalog that accompanied an exhibit of William S. Burroughs’s photographs at The Photographers Gallery in London. It seems there are more than a few writers who also took pictures, including Jack London, Eudora Welty, Ralph Ellison, Wright Morris, and William Faulkner.